


An Unexpected Pleasure

by BlackjackKent



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcohol, Clubbing, F/F, First Kiss, Flirting, Gen, Purgatory, Romance, Sexual Orientation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4329186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackjackKent/pseuds/BlackjackKent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shore leave is a time for cutting loose from the day-to-day protocols of military life, and after a few drinks at Purgatory, Sam Traynor finds the courage and motivation to try flirting again with Commander Shepard. She's fairly sure Shepard is interested in women too, and her intuition doesn't lie -- the only trouble is Shepard hasn't quite realized it herself yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unexpected Pleasure

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a reward for a giveaway I did on my personal Tumblr (http://blackjackkent.tumblr.com) a little while ago, which was won by one of my RP partner's in crime, [kepeshyakshichampion](http://kepeshyakshichampion.tumblr.com). She requested a fic involving my Shepard, Jenna, and Samantha Traynor (a pairing we have explored extensively in RP) -- specifically, a scenario in which Sam helps Jenna recognize her attraction to women in addition to the men she's been with up to that point.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Samantha Traynor had been a bartender at Oxford.

It was not the _primary_ thing she had been doing at Oxford, of course, but it had been a way to make an extra quick credit or two while working her way through college, and she had to admit even now that it had taught her some valuable things. How to make a sloe gin fizz on the rocks with one hand and swipe a credit chit with the other, for instance, or how to turn a beer-addled man twice her size out of a pub when she herself was only five feet even, and perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet. _That_ had been an interesting day.

But the most important thing she’d learned was that alcohol had a way of making people show their true colors. You could learn a lot about the people around you by watching how they acted under the influence.

“Jack and Coke, please.” She offered a cautious smile at the salarian bartender and settled herself on a stool, squinting in Purgatory’s dim light.

It was not, she decided, her type of place, not in the same way that the pubs in Oxford had been, or even the bars she’d frequented after work during the retrofits in Vancouver. Purgatory had more of an edge to it, a feeling of being stretched taut which somehow seemed to fit its name as something balanced between heaven and hell. But it was the place the Normandy crew frequented, and even though she didn’t really feel a complete part of the crew yet, she didn’t know anywhere better to go.

And besides...she was told that this was the best place to see Commander Shepard on shore leave, and she was perfectly willing to admit (at least to herself) that she had a lot of interest in any opportunity to see the commander a little bit more. _I mean...the woman is gorgeous._

At any rate, she could already tell she would certainly have plenty of opportunities in Purgatory for the inebriated-people-watching which had made bartending in Oxford so entertaining. Many of her crewmates had beaten her here and were staging various tableaux from one end of the room to the other, as if in deliberate anticipation of some external student in watering-hole anthropology.

Vega had made himself known almost as soon as he walked in the door. A small crowd of hangers-on stood clustered around him (likely all acolytes of his connection to Commander Shepard), and he was slowly working his way through a line of drinks someone had placed in front of him. Joker was in another corner half-wrapped around EDI; evidently he’d taken in enough beer that he no longer harbored embarrassment on the subject, not that Sam blamed him for his interest in any case.

Garrus sat near the center of the club with a large bottle of turian brandy, holding court to a bored-looking Chakwas and a raptly attentive Steve Cortez. Sam had drawn briefly close enough to hear him for a moment and gathered only that it was about something to do with the Normandy’s main gun, and that had been enough to send her packing back out of the conversation.

Liara and Tali had found the dance floor and were swaying unsteadily to the pulsing beat of the music; Liara had a tipsy smile on her face and Tali’s relaxed bearing told Sam that the face hidden behind the quarian mask likely held a similar expression. Far back in one of the dark corners near the dance floor railing, Ken Donnelly and Gabby Daniels were sharing a moment, oblivious to the activity and noise around them.

Indeed, everyone that Sam recognized seem to be having an excellent time -- except Shepard.

* * *

Jenna Shepard was no stranger to drinking under stress, but she was not exactly what one would term a party animal. More comfortable among her crew than with strangers and uneasy in the increasing public scrutiny under which she found herself, she tended to hole up somewhere out of the way with a steady stream of whiskey sours ordered for delivery to her table. From there she could keep an eye on her crew without being in their way, attentive without adding additional stress. No crew liked having their commander watching over their shoulders on shore leave, and it was more important now than ever that she allow them the time to blow off steam.

So she was somewhat isolated from the main crowd and thus in a good position for Sam to look at her without being all that noticed herself, which was a good thing because Sam was very curious indeed about the commander.

It had been easy to idolize Shepard when Sam did not know her. The commander had saved half of Horizon’s colonists, after all -- Sam and her entire family included. And she was constantly on the news, the tough-as-nails street rat turned soldier who had died and come back to life, saved the Citadel, defected to Cerberus and returned to the Alliance. It was a mere snap of the fingers to picture her larger than life.

The last few months on the Normandy, however, had given a very different picture of who Shepard was. There was no larger-than-life in the woman Sam saw every day; instead she bore witness to an exhausted and overworked unwilling messiah figure, up late every night with insomnia and poring over reports in the CIC, emerging every morning with a coffee mug and dark circles under her eyes, clearly exhausted and feeling heavy strain.

But at the same time, Sam had also seen the commander in action -- snapping out orders, all violence and practicality, sharp as a tack under the immediate pressures of combat and then surprisingly warm in the aftermath, checking up on all her crew to be sure they were managing. She offered everything to the people under her command but gave away nothing about herself, her private worries kept carefully concealed behind scarred lips and glowing eyes.

For all these reasons she was, if it were even possible, considerably _more_ attractive in person than Sam had ever imagined her from a distance. Shepard was a mystery and an authority and a force of nature, and yet visibly human at the same time -- and of course athletic in the most appealing way (Sam had more than once seen the commander work out with Lieutenant Vega in the cargo bay, and spent the rest of the day aching after the flex of sweat-sheened abs).

All of which was to say that Shepard had made quite an impression on Sam, and her interest in seeing what the commander was like out of armor and intoxicated was more than entirely academic. It was something of a fun game, a way of honing her powers of observation -- but it also might teach her something useful about how to talk to this woman who impressed and attracted her so.

Shepard was tired. That much was obvious from the get-go, by the way her head slumped over her drink and her fingers twitched at the straw sticking out of it.

She was lonely, glancing regularly at the members of her crew mixed in with the crowd, making slight movements towards them as if to consider joining them, and then recoiling.

She was both distracted and arhythmic. Her free hand drummed heavily on the edge of the table, but in a way that had no connection to the beat of the bass-heavy music saturating the air.

She was...into women.

This last realization startled Sam. After all, the commander’s former relationship with Major Alenko was common knowledge, and there were rumors that she had spent time with the drell who saved the Council as well. But there was no mistaking that slight tip of the head that sent Shepard’s eyes skimming up past the drinking crowd, watching the unsubtle writhing of the dancers on Purgatory’s upper platform. There was no mistaking the distracted, frustrated scuff of one of the commander’s boots under the table.

_Well, well, Commander,_ Sam thought with a flash of amusement. _It seems you and I share a taste after all._

She pondered over this revelation. Of course she’d considered trying to flirt with Shepard, had even dropped what she considered a rather unsubtle comment while using the commander’s shower, but Shepard had not picked up on it and Sam had mentally shelved the possibility indefinitely into the _Straight or Uninterested_ category. But that had all been shipboard, when everyone had other things on their mind and the uniform was an everpresent reminder of protocol and regulation. Shore leave, she was told, was a scenario where dalliance was a little more acceptable, a little less forbidden.

And the woman _was_ gorgeous. What could it hurt to try again?

“I think I need another drink,” she said wryly to the bartender. “And a glass of whatever Commander Shepard is drinking.”

* * *

“Commander?”

Jenna looked up blearily at the unexpected voice to her right. “Traynor…” She cracked a slight smile seeing the specialist approach. “Nice t’ see you off the ship.” From what she had been able to tell, Traynor had been conspicuously absent from a lot of the crew’s shore leave excursions, so it was indeed nice to see that she was getting some fresh air along with everyone else.

Jenna liked Traynor, in an amorphous, unformed way she had yet to define. The comm officer wasn’t like most of the Alliance officers Jenna had ever worked with; she was just this side shy of a civilian, an intensely _nice_ person with none of the usual rough-and-tough of a shock trooper. Even Kaidan, nice as he was, had never had that same level of real unreserved openness.

And Traynor had grown considerably in the last few months too. The first day Jenna had spoken to her, her nervousness and idolization of the commander had been obvious. These days, she was more steady in her position, and her conversations with Jenna were increasingly friendly rather than superior/subordinate.

Jenna liked it that way. The warmth between them was solid and steady, comforting in an odd way she had not known she was looking for.

“Thank you, Commander,” Traynor said. Her grin was slightly tipsy but no less genuine for being so. “I bought you a drink.” She lifted a glass of whiskey sour in one hand.

Jenna smiled slightly, glanced at her own empty glass. “Nice of you, Specialist. Just in time, too. Have a seat.” She gestured at the empty chair next to her.

Traynor sat down at once, a little unsteadily, but managed to set the glass down without any mishap. “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Jenna took the glass, raised it in a mock-toast, and sipped at it. “Enjoying Purgatory?”

“Rather. Nothing to the pubs I served at in university, of course,” Traynor said with a laugh. “But it’s all right.”

“Right. Oxford, yeah?” Jenna asked, a thoughtful expression pulling her eyebrows down. “Never been. I will say Purgo’s better’n some of the Citadel bars I’ve been to. Chora’s Den was all right, I guess. Never did serve a good human whiskey; always had to make do with that batarian crap.”

“Chora’s Den.” Traynor looked amused. “Wasn’t that a strip club?”

“Yeah.” Jenna shrugged slightly, hoping the burn of her ears wasn’t visible in the dim light. “Wasn’t so many options on the Citadel back then, at least ones that served stuff humans could drink.”

“And the dancers?”

“What about them?”

“Were they any good?”

Jenna shrugged. “I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

Traynor nodded, sipped at her own drink. “The ones here are,” she commented pointedly, her eyes flashing up towards the platform where the dancers were plying their trade.

Jenna’s gaze was already back on her glass. “I guess. No better than I’ve seen anywhere else. The music’s worse. They always seem to be playing the same goddamn song here.”

“Is that why you’re not dancing?”

Jenna snorted. “Surely you’ve heard the tales of Commander Shepard’s dancing? By some accounts it’s how I destroyed Sovereign.”

That elicited a gentle laugh from Traynor. “Well. I make it a point never to judge based on rumors. Another thing you learn bartending.”

Jenna snorted softly. “Well, point to you then. Makes you better’n plenty out there. God knows there’s a lot ‘a rumors about me people seem happy to believe wholeheartedly.”

Traynor frowned, evidently thinking this over for a while. “Well…” she said slowly after a long pause, not without some evident sympathy. “Should I take that to mean you’d say no if I asked you to dance?”

Jenna blinked. “What?”

Traynor flushed, eyes flicking away. “I was going to ask if you wanted to. Dance, I mean. After you finished the drink I brought you.”

Jenna looked at her for a long moment, then eyed the half-drunk glass in her hand. The wheels were turning, slowly but surely putting the pieces of the situation together. _Oh. OH…_ “Are you...flirting with me, Specialist?” she asked, with the caution of one stepping across quicksand, feeling warily for the patches of solid ground.

Traynor’s lips twitched with amusement and she looked down shyly. “Well, I was. Whether I continue...well, that’s up to you, I suppose.”

Jenna swallowed another, slightly-too-large mouthful of alcohol and set her glass down hard. “I...just wasn’t expecting it,” she answered lamely, fumblingly. “I didn’t come here looking for…”

“No, of course you didn’t,” Traynor said hastily. “You came here to relax. And if you’d rather I turn about and leave, that’s perfectly all right.”

“No, no, I...it’s okay.” A strange mixed-up feeling had settled abuptly in Jenna’s stomach. She _had_ been lonely, she _had_ just been thinking that she missed having someone to talk to under the beat of the local soundtrack...someone to share a word or a joke with...someone to touch.

But she hadn’t expected Traynor, of all people, to offer herself up as that person. And she certainly hadn’t expected that idea to sound so appealing. “It’s okay,” she repeated awkwardly. “I...sorry. I’m drunk.”

“I can tell,” Traynor said, somewhat amused, though her mouth pulled down at the corners in a way that Jenna knew meant she was unraveling a problem in her mind. “You’ve never had a woman flirt with you before, have you, Commander?” she finally asked, matter-of-factly.

“No,” Jenna answered honestly, relaxing a little. “I...well, I mean, asari. I don’t know if that counts. Mono-gender and all.”

“Mm. And it never occurred to you to flirt with a woman?”

A longish silence. “It never came up,” Jenna answered slowly.

“And now that it has?”

Jenna smiled crookedly. _Very direct, aren’t you?_ She paused a moment to examine her feelings, to try to untangle the abrupt knot of emotion that Traynor’s flirtation had precipitated. “I still don’t want to dance,” she said quietly. “But...I don’t think I want you to go, either.”

That got another laugh. “That’s acceptable, Commander.”

“Jenna.” The word slipped out before Jenna quite knew she was saying it; it hung in the air between them. She laughed sheepishly. “Flirting with me and still calling me Commander, _Specialist_?”

“I don’t know. The rank adds a certain _frisson_ , don't you think?” Traynor asked dryly, the light in her eyes dancing teasingly. Jenna wondered how she had never noticed before how such dark eyes could look so bright. “But all right...Jenna.” The name sounded oddly sweet on her tongue; Jenna had the sudden sense that she’d never heard it spoken in quite that fashion before. “And I’m Sam.”

“Sam,” Jenna repeated softly, watching the younger woman shift in visible response, and she found herself smiling quietly. “All right.”

* * *

Sam quickly realized that she could not expect to match Shepard drink for drink. The Commander was, after all, almost thirty-five percent cybernetic, which hardly made her a robot but was certainly enough to metastasize alcohol far more effectively than Sam’s small body could.

So she settled on a pace that equated roughly a third of her glass to one of Shepard’s, and that seemed to work out all right. It still made her sufficiently loopy by the time Shepard stopped drinking, but she was not on the floor, which would have been a real shame given how things were developing.

She had not imagined that the Commander -- _Jenna_ \-- could be this warm. Maybe it was the social lubricant doing the job, but nevertheless the older woman was smiling here and there, laughing with real humor as they talked. It was entirely different from the terse, tense military officer Sam worked with every day, and this was almost overwhelming, in a way. It had been easy to accept that Shepard worked under so much strain when they were engaged in the business of war.

Here, so obviously human and without the guise of a soldier...it abruptly became tremendously sad.

Sam wasn’t sure when her hand ended up resting on Jenna’s forearm. It just landed there, apropos of nothing, and then Jenna’s hand was covering it, warm and firm, palm damp in the sticky heat of the club.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Sam found herself asking.

Jenna raised one eyebrow, swayed unsteadily. “Heading back to the Normandy already, Samantha?” she asked.

Sam’s lips twitched. “Only if you’re coming with me, ma’am…” she murmured.

Jenna’s color deepened again, and Sam realized with abrupt clarity that the commander was nervous, which seemed almost incredible under the circumstances. But it was true, nevertheless; she was nervous, even frightened. Commander Shepard, who faced down impossible odds every day, was overwhelmed by the prospect of company in her cabin.

“Am I going too fast, Jenna?” Sam asked gently, withdrawing her hand.

Jenna’s head dropped sheepishly. “I’ve...never done this before, Traynor. Not with a woman. And even with guys I...ain’t really been havin’ a lot a’ practice lately…”

Sam nodded slightly, trying to read the other woman’s expression. “Does it bother you that I’m a woman?”

Jenna’s teeth worried against her lower lip. “No,” she said softly, almost inaudible under the music. The unsteadiness of the word confirmed Sam’s suspicions. Jenna had never pictured being in this situation; she was not unwilling, she was merely surprised at her own inclinations. She had, quite simply, not known this about herself until tonight.

Sam smiled, feeling a gentle tingle up and down her spine, a sense of excitement and shyness mixed. “Well, then...I think we’re probably in the clear,” she said lightly. “I’m no more difficult to work with than anyone else. Simpler, even.”

Jenna laughed hoarsely, looked away, hastily swallowed the last of her drink.

Sam watched her in silence for a moment, then reached out and brushed her fingers against the commander’s jaw. “We needn’t move faster than you’re ready for,” she said quietly. “A kiss from a woman first, perhaps?”

Jenna’s eyes visibly flicked to Sam’s lips; a muscle jumped in her throat as she swallowed. “Might be a good start,” she said softly.

“Is that a yes?” Normally Sam might have taken it as enough; flirtation lost a lot of impact when it lost its subtlety. But she had the sense that she was treading more unsteady ground than usual this time, as evidenced by the fact that she was the clear leader here, with Jenna trailing behind, feeling her way. Sam didn’t mind that, but she had no intention of doing a thing that wasn’t asked for, lest things turn out awkward in the morning when all the alcohol wore off.

Another tingle of nervous excitement went through her, wondering what lay between now and then. But she wouldn’t rush. She wouldn’t rush. They had plenty of time.

So she waited, held back until Jenna met her eyes and nodded wordlessly. Then she cupped the commander’s cheek firmly with one hand, felt the heavy beat of her pulse under her skin. Jenna stiffened a little at the touch but didn’t pull away. “It’s all right,” Sam crooned softly. “I don’t bite…”

Shepard’s head dipped forward slightly, and that was enough invitation. Sam leaned in with the surreal sense that she was enacting some new version of an old dream, and pressed her lips to the other woman’s.

The first contact lasted only a moment and shot an electric current through her as if she’d stuck her fingers into a power socket. Shepard was warm, tasted of whiskey and batarian wine and had an odd forcefulness about her touch even as she so visibly stilled herself to let Sam guide the contact. It was nothing like the kisses that had preceded Sam’s usual hooksups. It was solid, steady as the commander herself, unyielding and yet unresisting. It was...amazing.

The second kiss came quickly upon the first, more vehement this time; Sam wasn’t sure whether she or Shepard instigated it, but she did know that in the space of a few seconds she was pressed up closer against the older woman, nearly into her lap. Jenna’s hand was buried in her hair, deepening the kiss. The weighty noise of Purgatory’s soundtrack seemed to fade away, and for what seemed an eternity there was nothing else but the two of them.

“Wow,” Sam mumbled inarticulately as she drew back. Her heart was pounding as if she had just run a marathon.

Jenna was looking at her with an expression that was two parts alcohol-fueled astonishment and three parts wonder. “That was nice…” she murmured cautiously, her fingers absently brushing against her own lips.

“You’re nice,” Sam echoed in return without missing a beat, grinning giddily. She had _kissed_ Commander Shepard. And Commander Shepard liked it! _If only my friends back at the lab could see me now...they’d never believe this!_ And yet even from the beginning, it had been more than that; this wasn’t about just a desire for company and certainly not about bragging rights.

Sam knew that she hadn’t imagined that spark between them. This was the beginning of something. She wasn’t sure what that something would turn out to be, but she definitely wanted to find out.

Jenna laughed ruefully. “Nice? No, I’m not,” she said wryly. “I’m a scarred-up soldier who does rough shit ‘cos it’s got to be done.”

“That doesn’t seem to have stopped me,” Sam returned teasingly. _There’s more to you than that, Jenna. Maybe I always knew that to some extent. But I’m sure of it tonight._

Jenna shook her head; perhaps part of her didn’t fully believe this was happening, judging by the bemused look on her face. “I guess not.” She grinned suddenly. “That may just mean you’re crazy, you know. But...I hope you don’t wise up any time soon.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to kiss me again?” Sam asked, tilting her head to one side with an innocent expression.

Jenna grinned, ran one hand through her own hair roughly. “Only if you meant what you said about getting out of here.”

Sam smiled, and with a greater sense of purpose and confidence reached out to brush her fingers gently against the collar of Jenna’s jacket. “Oh, I most certainly did.”

 


End file.
